Word: turkmenistan
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...worst of the worst": "Among the eight worst-rated countries, one, North Korea, is a one-party Marxist-Leninist regime. Two, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, are Central Asian countries ruled by dictators with roots in the Soviet period. Libya is an Arab country under the sway of a secular dictatorship, while Sudan is under a leadership that has elements both of radical Islamism and of a typical military junta. The remaining worst-rated states are Burma, a tightly-controlled military dicatorship; Equatorial Guinea, a highly repressive regime with one of the worst human rights records in Africa; and Somalia, a failed...
Sure, there are some true grotesqueries to be found in the book. There's a wittily observed chapter on the weirdness that is Turkmenistan, with statues and giant photographs of the late dictator Saparmurat Niyazov everywhere: "In some he looked like a fat and grinning Dean Martin wearing a Super Bowl ring." As someone who's been to most of the places Theroux describes, that's the kind of sentence I want to read; the kind that makes me think, "Exactly!" (and "I wish I'd written that...
...KAZAKHSTAN 2. UZBEKISTAN 3. TURKMENISTAN 4. KYRGYZSTAN 5. TAJIKISTAN These states are wedged between Russia and China. Several are resource-rich and endure varying levels of autocratic rule; a few have let NATO use land for bases...
...popular culture will almost certainly, thanks to Borat, have heard of Kazakhstan. Then again, the image of the country created by the movie couldn't be more appallingly crass. But it's all relative. Kazakhstan's neighbors include: Uzbekistan, which regularly makes news for its repressive crackdown on dissidents; Turkmenistan, which is best known for its former dictator's cult of personality so extreme that he renamed the days of the week after the women in his life; and Kyrgystan, which is where, exactly? Kazakhstan, by contrast, has the neighborhood bragging rights attached to being a big name in Hollywood...
...Gazprom had also been reselling cheaper gas from Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan at higher prices to Europe. But Turkmenistan has raised its prices to Russia by 30%, and intends to add a further 20% raise in the second quarter of 2008. Uzbekistan has done the same. And Turkmenistan's plans to supply China will also break Gazprom's monopoly, via its control of pipelines, on delivering Central Asian gas exports...